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Monday, October 17, 2016

It was a short weekend. A one day weekend, in fact. On Sunday, it was overcast, but surprisingly mild. My favorite apples, the Idared, could finally be picked, and so I made it a day, apple picking and the Breakwater Lighthouse in Rockland. Rockland has several lighthouse, but this is the one at the very end of a long, long breakwater way, which was man-built into the wide harbor of Rockland to guide the ships, with a lighthouse at the end of it. When the tide is high, the waves splash over the big Maine granite boulders of the walk way. At low tide, only the wind pummels the visitors. It is a beautiful, almost 1 mile walk which seems much farther.

Sunday, October 16, 2016

It has been a long, long week. The weather is beautiful, sunny often and even warm. The leaves have an incredible vibrant color this fall like someone moved the contrast right to the max volume. It is beautiful. Here are some finds from this week, the one that impressed me the most is the last link.

Foodstyling photos: I found this home foodstyling workshop in Berlin, from the beautiful Krautkopf blog. I am in love with all the photos, the dark hardwood floors, the atmosphere captured, the tattoes of the guy’s arm, and the coffee maker!

Knitting time: Fall is the time to pick apples, cook kuri squash soup, and finally open a good book, find that cozy blanket and read (likely supported by a cat or two). If I have my hands free, it is also the time to knit, like this sweater (<--no affiliate link!).

Why life is not a journey. It is to sing or dance while the music is still playing. I found this beautiful video made to the words of Allan Watts, about the common western perception that life is a journey, that we need to ‘get somewhere’ and when we get to the destination we are rewarded and all the good feelings start. So, we focus on getting there. But, nothing ever changes at the destination. That life is really more like music, at any time in life, childhood, teenager hood, adulthood, and we are here to dance, and sing, with life, as long as the music lasts.

Monday, October 10, 2016

On Friday, Wholefood Market had a special sale: 3 bundles of Tuscan Kale for $5. That was a lot of kale. I stored it in my fridge, and the leaves started to become limp. Today, I chopped it up and stored it in a covered glass bowl in the fridge so that I would get more life out of it. It did not all fit, and how to reduce the volume of kale really fast? Kale chips.

Actually, I used the organic curly kale that I had picked up from Trader Joes for the chips. The marinade was thrown together fast: 1/4 cup nutritional yeast, 2-3 TB mirin (sweet rice vinegar), 1 TB amino acids, and a teaspoon of roasted sesame oil. New this time: a tablespoon of red pepper flakes and a tablespoon of cane sugar. Salty, spicy, sweet and crunchy is a good combination in my book (followed by ravenously eating all the chips).

I mixed it all up, and massaged the marinade into the leaves, strew them out on a baking sheet, and instead of drying it for 12h I baked them at 375F for 10 min. They were basically toasted kale leaves.

As said. Addictive.

These days I make quite a few kale edamame lunch salads with dried cranberries and slivered almonds, an apple and balsamic vinaigrette. The kale adds a good bite and texture, and it is crunchy with the apples and almonds, and sweet with the vinaigrette and apple. Perfect fall salad!

The weather is sunny, sometimes still really warm and the leaves are the brightest yellow, orange and red I have seen in years. The wind blows wildly and the leaves are dancing. Soon they will dance off the trees, and then gray November will set it. But this is still far away.